John Carpenter returns in this horror/sci-fi flick that finds Natasha Henstridge's character handcuffed to a delivery train. A police team finds her and begin to interrogate her about her experience and discover her grizzly story. In the movie, she and a team of hardcore police go to a mining facility on mars to discover that the entire place is inhabited by barbaric possessed mutants that mutilate themselves for decoration and basically kill off anyone that intrudes.
    Now then, I'll get straight to the main aspect of the movie that had my attention. The soundtrack. John Carpenter just has a knack for making innovative and creepy original soundtracks to these films. This soundtrack is kind of a hard rock guitar riff sound. The characters aren't too shabby. The one that caught my attention most of the time was Natasha Henstridge (Species, She-spies) who is s-o-o-o hot in this flick, especially when she's kicking ass. Rapper Ice Cube is just great as the hardcore bull talking "Desolation" Williams, a sole prisoner who knows all about the aliens. He's quick with the gun and manages to hold his own within this cast. I loved the mutant alien things that roamed throughout the movie as a constant obstacle to the characters. They somewhat resembled zombies with their relentless pursuit to dismember the main characters and keep invaders away. The atmosphere is genuine with its hokey drive-in feel. This is a good movie for a group of people to watch at a party, or just for guys having a good time. Good job Mr. Carpenter.

The problem with this is its constant plotholes. What happened to all the other characters? Did they die? Live? Get away? What? Tell us for god sake. We have some tough inmates and officers that eventually get possessed and lost in the battlefield and we never hear from them again. What's up Carpenter? I hate the shoddy directing which sometimes made it very very confusing to make out what was happening. They would fade into the flashbacks and cut to present moments then fade into present moments and cut to flashbacks. They also made the situations too easy and quick, which was sort of a cop-out. This is supposed to be a futuristic creepy remake to carpenters "Assault on Precinct 13". Trust me folks, this is no comparison. This lacked any depth or feeling, and had awful characters, as opposed to Precinct 13 which had great character development and enactment. Possibly the worst character in this film is Pam Grier's. She plays the jive-talking lesbian commander who tends to overact and under act her role, but we never care because she gets offed early in the film... which we never see! I would have loved to see her get decapitated. I'm sorry, but she did look good. That's a high point. Right? The aliens weren't that threatening but very very creepy. Especially the leader who looked like Alice Cooper on acid. I would have liked to see more of him and his goons.

All in all this is cheesy popcorn romp with a great surprise ending that I just cannot ruin for you. Just check it out for yourself.